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The increase in consumption of vegan foods has promoted higher production of different plant-based proteins. This study looked at developing a non-invasive and rapid method to determine the authenticity of plant-based protein powders (free of soy, lactose, and gluten), and classify possible adulterants (soya, whey and wheat) in the powders, using FT-NIR (Fourier Transform-Near-Infrared Spectroscopy) and chemometrics. A set of 47 pure plant protein samples were analysed by FT-NIR.  A set of 144 adulterated samples were prepared by adding 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40% (w/w) of each adulterant into pure plant-based protein powder samples, and also analysed. The spectra were analysed chemometrically combining one class and multiclass methods, and it was found that this approach could be successfully used in a range of 10–40% of adulteration, to verify the authenticity of the plant-based protein powders and to classify adulterants into soy, whey, and wheat.

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Spectroscopic methods were used in this study for the discrimination of durum and common wheat samples since they are rapid, reliable, easy to use, low cost, environmentally friendly, and non-destructive. For this purpose, 120 common and 119 durum wheat samples with different genotypes were collected from various regions in Turkey and analysed using Raman spectroscopy, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR), synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy (SFS), and attenuated total reflectance Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR). Data analysis was performed using the principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA).

These spectroscopic tools, combined with chemometric analysis, were generally successful in distinguishing common and durum wheat flour samples. It was found that the best method was SFS with a discrimination rate of 100% based on high sensitivity (1.000) and specificity (1.000) values. The effectiveness of the models in which NIR and ATR-FTIR spectroscopies were used was found to be highly similar in terms of the discrimination of durum and common wheat samples. Data obtained from Raman Spectroscopy demonstrated that the method was less sensitive in discriminating between common and durum wheat flour samples than the other spectroscopic techniques with a quite high RMSEP value (0.441). SFS, ATR-FTIR, and NIR spectroscopies proved to be more sensitive and applicable tools than Raman spectroscopy in the discrimination of common and durum wheat samples.

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All eyes are on Australia’s developing winter crop as global grains markets look to Australia to offset a poor European harvest hit by drought, an international grains strategist has told local growers.

Rabobank London-based global grains and oilseeds strategist @Stefan Vogel, speaking on the bank’s Australian Grain Mid-season Webinar, said when it comes to #wheat and #canola in particular, “we are all looking for good crops in Australia to make up the shortfall caused by the poor season in Europe”.

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This research abstract reports a targeted proteomics-based analysis of bread, which allows quantification of the three cereal species wheat, rye and spelt in bread. Specific proteins/peptides for rye, spelt and wheat were identified. The use of multi-reaction monitoring transitions of selected peptides permitted the identification of the closely related species - wheat and spelt, and other cereal species (emmer, einkorn, barley, maize, rye and oat) were also checked. 

Read the abstract at: Cereal determination in bread by peptide biomarkers